Baseball Opposes Online Casinos While Taking Harrah's Money
Major League Baseball, like most US sports leagues, is committed to preventing the regulation of online casinos to protect the integrity of sporting matches. But Harrah's Entertainment, which unlike most Internet gambling sites does take sports bets, has been accepted as a sponsor of MLB teams.
Both the Chicago Cubs and the New York Mets signed deals with Harrah's and its subsidiary casinos, linking the teams to the operator of some of the largest sports books in the US.
Harrah's and the Mets reached agreement that makes the gaming company "one of the team's signature partners." Harrah's will receive preferred advertising space at the Mets' home, brand-new Citi Field. The gambling operator will also have ads at Mets minor league affiliates' games.
Harrah's will also host theme nights at the stadium, and offer Mets fans special discounts and deals at Atlantic City casinos owned by the company.
The Cubs sold a prominent billboard location at Wrigley Field to the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana. The ad, posted on the left-field rooftop, will feature the casino, and the Horseshoe will run shuttles to its location less than a half-hour from Wrigley.
Observers say the stance against online gambling by sports leagues becomes more and more hypocritical. The majority of Internet casinos do not even host sports wagering, but certainly Harrah's does. Legal sports books at Nevada casinos owned by Harrah's take daily action on games featuring the Cubs, Mets, and all the other Major League Baseball teams.
The need to protect integrity in sports, they say, seems to end exactly where sports league wallets begin.
